‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Stars Talk That Long-Awaited Meeting (VIDEO)
Where No One Has Gone Before
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[These interviews were conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike authorization.]
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 6 “Lost in Translation.”]
The moment that Star Trek fans have been waiting for ever since it was announced that Paul Wesley was cast as James T. Kirk on Strange New Worlds is here: the future captain and Spock (Ethan Peck) meeting.
“I know it was so casual. It literally was a handful of words, but that first meeting between Spock and Uhura [Celia Rose Gooding] and Kirk, just the three of them and [when] the camera pulls back, it’s so f**king awesome,” Wesley told TV Insider.
Uhura is the one to instigate the meeting, after she leans on Kirk while facing her past. Kirk is the one to invite Spock to join them, and the episode ends with the three of them talking.
“It is funny because I tend to go into these scenes and moments not really thinking about how it’ll be perceived, and Paul turned to me [and was] like, ‘This is crazy. This is Spock and Kirk meeting,'” Peck recalled in the video interview above. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t even think about it.'”
Wesley, on the other hand, admitted he overanalyzed the moment because of the weight of a friendship that is iconic in Star Trek history, though the two characters don’t know what that will become. “I thought that was a really smart choice,” he shared. “It would be so exciting to see the genesis of this iconic friendship, but we haven’t quite done that yet and who knows if we will. I would love to, if it were up to me. I also just think Ethan’s such a great actor, so it would be great to work opposite him.”
For now, Kirk just “finds Spock intriguing” (it’s why he invites him to sit) but might not be aware of what the future could hold for the two. “Sometimes people have intuition,” Wesley points out. “They say that the people you bring into your life are healing certain things inside of you or are you trying to find something within yourself. I’m not sure if it’s true for friendships, but maybe there’s a part of Spock, that logical mind, that maybe Kirk wants more in his life and that’s why they form this friendship.”
Paramount+
For Gooding, “it was a major balancing act of actor knowledge versus character knowledge of knowing what this [meeting] means, not only to this character but to the franchise and the audience.”
But does Uhura have any idea what that moment means? “I think Kirk and Spock as a duo are so magnetic that it’s hard to not catch their chemistry,” Gooding said, noting that Spock looks to Uhura to check it’s OK with her if he joins them. “Uhura’s instinct is to be like, ‘Yes, you two have to meet,'” due to Uhura’s conversations with both (Spock in Season 1, Kirk in this episode).
“[It’s] like, you both gave me advice and [what] I needed in order to be here now content and together again, [so] it only made sense for her to be the one to introduce those two,” Gooding continued. “I think as a character, she may not understand the full weight of that meeting, but I think she has the understanding that at least for her, having those two know one another and be in her life similarly, was really important.”
Executive producer Akiva Goldman acknowledged that they “have so many miles to go before Kirk and Spock become the Kirk and Spock that folks who are TOS fans know, and as we like to say, we’re dealing with the places that lead to the places that we know. … You’ll notice that moment is only significant if you have a sense of where things might lead. Otherwise it’s just an interesting meet-cute, and for us, Henry [Alonso Myers] always says, we’re living in the characters’ present, not their future. And that’s exciting. And so we like to let it breathe. We’re not rushing. Otherwise our show would be over.”
Added Myers, “that scene in particular was kind of joyful because we try to approach it like these people don’t know about their future, so what’s the gift for people who’ve never seen them before? What is the thing that you’re experiencing now, which is a moment of emotional happiness? What’s a human being moment here?”
Watch the video above for more from Peck, Wesley, and Gooding about that important Spock, Kirk, and Uhura scene.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+
